Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Duck You Sucker
Of the great five Sergio Leone "Spaghetti Westerns" my favorite is the last and least known. Giù la testa aka Duck You Sucker aka A Fistful of Dynamite is a 1971 film set in the in the Mexican revolution,with about an expatriate Irish revolutionary dynamite expert James Coburn and Rod Steiger as the paternal head of a rag tag family of Mexican bandoleros.
Because I love movies, I have a weak place in my heart for A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West. But Duck, You Sucker Leone's final take on the western, is my favorite for many reasons. And this is partly due to my first encounter with it. About two decades ago. I was channel surfing cable premium channels late on a Saturday night, and encountered an exchange between Rod Steiger and James Coburn in stylish closeups so close they could only have been the work of Leone. I was amazed "What was this film?" I later found that it was known as A Fistful of Dynamite and later found out that it was also known as Duck, You Sucker God help the film that is named for an arcane catch phrases. Hellzapoppin!
It wasn't even the lost western status that has fascinated me about this film, it is because it is very rich, nuanced, and full of shots bigger than those of even Once Upon a Time in the West. Steiger is fully over the top as Juan Miranda a role which is in many way a carry over of Eli Wallach's turn as earthy bandito Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. and he contrasts well with the past-tortured IRA revolutionary played by Coburn.
I grew up watching Coburn in many movies, all cool ass and cocky with a grin that puts a certain Scientologist's smirk into filmic perspective. He is very hip coming into this film in full Leone bravado blowing up mountains and riding a motorcycle. We learn much about his past in a series of four or five dialog free flashbacks accompanied by one of Nino Rota's best themes with the chorus singing "Sean, Sean, Sean."
The flashbacks underscore a hard earned traits in Leone's. Namely, that his films could stand alone without dialog. Leone movies almost could stand as silents One could come in with a few intertitles and a Rota score and it would be an effective film experience.
I propose another title for Duck, You Sucker. Maybe it could be called An Irishman, a Bandit, and a Revolution. This is triangle is at the foundation of the film. The Mexican revolution is more than a backdrop, it almost serves as a character impacting the attitudes and the relationship of the two central figures for well over two hours.
But rest assured that Leone is not giving us a Marxist endorsement of overthrow, despite the near post-1968 revolution era of when Duck You Sucker was made and the Chairman Mao quote that begins the film. No, this is not a black and white western in that regard--good guy revolutionaries against the man. It is further from Godard and closer to John Lennon's in your face dress down of the Beatles' Revolution No.1 "Well, you know we all want to change the world." Although it shows us a lot of revolution and fall out from revolution, Duck You Sucker is really about these two oddball characters in the midst of it all.
The best way to watch this film is to find the two disc reissue of it that MGM brought out a couple of years ago. It features a remastered full length director's cut of the films and lots of fun extras. I'm glad I finally sat down and watched it, even if it took incoming library fines to finally inspire me to do that. I want to go back and watch the other Leones starting with Fistful. Maybe a viewing of what for Eastwood was a Sean Connery Dr. No kind of long term journey will lead me to the whole of the other western's chronologically, which would logically end with another screening of Duck You Sucker That would not be a bad thing at all, because I am convinced that there are a lot of wonderful things in this film I have not yet discovered.
posted by well-executed buffet at 8:08 AM
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